Monday, June 27, 2005

Stage fright

When I first became a Priest, I found it very difficult to talk in front of large groups of people. I’d get terrible stage fright and would feel very ill.

People often ask me how I’ve overcome my shyness and I just tell them that I started to pretend that everyone in my audience is naked. It made public speaking much more bearable because I wasn’t concentrating on my own fears.

The only problem with this is that most people in my audience are very old and don’t exercise much. They frighten me at times.

Dying over here at Lazy Iguana's comment. My thinking exactly!Truth be told oh holy faddah, old and out of shape people kind of scare me even when they're fully clothed. Maybe if you just look at them all from the neck up... like a sea of heads. Just heads. Just a thought.

Public speaking isn't that bad, though. I personally do not visualize people in any sense or weird abstraction--it would making speaking in front of them worse, especially naked people.

Practice flame meditation, your Holiness, it really does help you focus while giving speeches in front of large crowds of people. It's certainly better than imagining them naked. Ugh! What a horrid sight that must be.